A Book of poetry and photography by Janavi Held
In her beautiful debut collection of poems, Janavi Held takes us on a journey of awakening, as she explores the ways in which her relationships with struggle, time, nature and beauty in this world, relate to her burgeoning relationship with the divine. From a restless “there are so many stories in my lost heart” to…
Like many God-inspired poets of India’s Bhakti or devotional past (Mirabai and Chandidas come easily to mind), Janavi Held–writer, photographer, cineaste, observer of small miracles—chronicles the arrhythmia of a heart in love with Divinity. Letters to My Oldest Friend is a revelation. In elegant, spare verse and contemplative visual imagery, she gently cautions that we…
“Letters to My Oldest Friend” is a classic spiritual journey, starting with the anguish of her losses – of mobility, of mind (she says, but the poem belies it), “wrapped in a blanket of thorns”, then to the longing for the spirit, the Friend, and finally a joyous reunion with spirit through nature. I read…
Read more “Letters to My Oldest Friend” is a classic spiritual journey,
Divine Names Your divine Names wander into my words my open mouth drinking that temptation is utterly fed here sitting under another spring sky. We have been together for so long yet, during the cold, wet winter I forgot to be happy forgot the feeling of Your warm air on my skin and how Your…
Look a Little Harder For value in the heart underneath the skin in the eyes bright the designs clouds make at the love even if it’s far at the moon sliver, at the way the light rises at dawn look a little harder the love is there perhaps under a mossy rock in the churning…
Flooding Within the shadowy waters of illusion I built thick castle walls sunken deep in those hazy waters my heart froze and slept for eons. Awakened from this deep sleep of ignorance by a flood of Your liberating monsoon rain You’ve opened the sky in my heart and the walls of my fortress are a…
Out on This Natural limb On the ends of wind-waving branches I build my residence watching all manner of creatures grow into living the fragrance of the wind carrying pollen and ozone feeds my inner ocean as long fingers of sunlight reach the vast expanse of my seeing. Out on this natural limb I…
Soaked A dead sea soaks in memory its form now shapeless has far to go to be lost to the little bits of thought still swimming its dry banks. My thoughts swell memories tremble there old incomplete sentences structured in timeless yawning, titanic clouds blocking the realness of now. Janavi Held © 2017…
Horizon I move too as the waves pierce the horizon that distance unattainable longs for me as well to embellish my ears with wind to swallow my eyes inside that insatiable horizon. Janavi Held © 2017
"Emergence" by Janavi Held
“Sometimes,” by Janavi held
"Two Poems" by Janavi Held
"When" by Janavi Held
“Exterminated Rock” by Janavi Held
"Motion" by Janavi Held
"Storming" by Janavi Held
"Dark Waters" by Janavi Held
